A/N: I've never had the opportunity to bring it up, but in this story, Joey's dad is from America (hence the surname AND the accent) while his mom is Japanese, just like how Ryou's dad is Japanese (hence the surname), but Ryou's mom is from England (hence the accent), but her parents are from Japan (hence her first name).
"Shut up."
Seto turned his gaze to glare at their adversary.
"This is what's going to happen: you"—he pointed to Seto—"are going to stand over there and chain yourself to the anchor, just like he is. Then the two of you are going to duel, and I'm going to start a timer for twenty minutes. When your opponent's life-points reach zero, the box in front of you will open, giving you the key you need to free yourself. The loser surrenders their life and their Millennium Item. If the duel isn't over by the end of twenty minutes, then you both lose: the anchor will drop when the timer goes off either way, so if you can't pick a winner by then, you'll both get dragged to the bottom of the harbor. This kid"—he said, gesturing to Mokuba—"only goes free once a winner has been declared. If the spectators try to interfere or call anyone for help, the kid gets punished. Any questions?"
"Just a few." Seto had, as the man spoke, followed his directions and was now standing across the pier from wide-eyed Ryou, who looked more anxious by the moment. "For starters, who are you and why are you doing this?" Seto's tone was a balanced blend of cocky confidence and unimpressed intelligence. "If all you wanted was the Millennium Items, you would have just stolen them. If you wanted us dead, you could have just killed us. Neither of those can be your main objective, because this is a ridiculously complicated death-trap. It seems unnecessary to me," Seto scoffed, the stranger gritting his teeth as he glared at the teenager. "Unless you have some obscure objective in mind that makes sense only to you. Or, rather, your boss, because you're clearly a mere lackey taking orders from someone else. Care to let us in on that little secret before we get started?"
Before the so-called lackey could respond, Joey cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, "Sick burn, man!" Mai whacked him on the arm for making light of such a serious situation, but Seto smirked in appreciation.
"Shut up, you insolent brat! Just get the duel started."
The man's response didn't address any of Seto's questions, only confirming the brunette's theory that he was indeed a mere grunt working in the employ of their true enemy.
"Wait. I have a proposition for you." Seto's serious expression didn't give anything away, but he looked less scornful now. "If we both win, then everyone goes free: we keep our items,—and our lives—you let Mokuba go, and you leave us alone."
"The chances of that happening are one in a million." Mokuba's captor was looking a bit smug now.
"If you're so confident that it won't happen, then you have nothing to lose by agreeing to it."
"Fine, I'll allow that, but only because you'll be that much more crushed when you fail."
"Alright then." Seto turned his head to face Ryou, though he was still addressing the other man. "We'll play along with your little game, just let us get our decks ready first." Ryou gave him a small nod of agreement; Seto may be the vocal one between them, but he spoke for them both, and he wasn't going to attach Ryou's name to a verbal contract without his consent.
"You have two minutes to ready your decks, then the duel will commence."
Marik could tell that Ryou looked slightly calmer now—Seto redefining the terms of the duel gave them a chance at true victory—but he was still a bundle of nerves too anxious to think as clearly as he needed to right now. Marik wasn't the only one who noticed, though. Seth did too.
"Talk to him in my language," Seth prompted his other half. "That way he won't know what you're doing."
And tell him what? Seto asked as he glanced up from his cards for the split second it took to take in Ryou's expression, then returned to shuffling cards from his main deck to his side deck and vice versa.
"Reassure him, advise him. You two can win this together if you're using the same strategy."
"Remember, Ryou," Seto called out in Hieratic Egyptian, not even looking up from his cards this time. "If we're both going to win, we both have to lose, and there's more than one way to do that."
"Losing all your life-points, or running out of cards in your main deck," Ryou replied promptly in the same tongue.
"Aim for one or both strategies as best you can, and I will too. So long as we both play to lose, we should be okay."
"Alright," Ryou agreed with a nod. "I trust you."
Marik was the only spectator who understood their exchange, but Joey could tell that Ryou was more focused now. Their two minutes ran out much too quickly, but Seto knew that he was ready. He could only hope that Ryou was too.
The timer began, and so did the duel, both teens playing to lose. Every monster was summoned in face-up attack mode, every trap activated cost the user life-points or cards from their deck, and every attack was absorbed willingly. Seto remained focused and calm, and his own composure helped Ryou to stay calm too. Mokuba remained silent, yet helplessly agitated for the entire duel. But who could blame him? His brother's life was at stake.
They took turns in record speed, summoning and defeating monsters faster than ever before. They were both playing to both strategies as well they could, Seto using Card of Destruction although he gained little from it, and Ryou playing Chain Energy though it hurt him equally. Given the restrictions of this particular duel, he felt better playing the card because it hurt them both equally, giving each of them a degree of control over how many life-points they lost each turn. Even so, keeping them dead even was impossible. Seto was trying to solve this problem like it was a puzzle, but without knowing Ryou's cards, it was just too difficult.
Ryou played spell and trap cards like Skull Invitation, Magical Thorn, Overpowering Eye, and Just Desserts that punished the opponent (or sometimes both players) for performing basic game mechanics, while Seto played spells and traps cards like Raimei, Sparks, Hinotoma, and Meteor of Destruction to directly attack his opponent's life-points. The lower their life-points got and the more time that passed, the more cautious they each had to become. They were just past the two-minute mark when Seto's cellphone vibrated in Joey's hand.
"Who is it?" Mai asked curiously, eagerly accepting any distraction from the grim duel.
"It's Anzu." Joey answered the call and put the phone to his ear. "Hello?"
"Joey?" She sounded irked. "Is Seto there? I need to talk to him."
"Uh, he's kinda busy right now. A little tied up, you could say."
Mai whacked him on the shoulder for making such an awful joke at a time like this.
"The police need to speak with him about Mokuba and the people who broke into your house, so could you please tell him to get over here?!" Anzu's anxiety and hysteria levels were currently higher than Joey'd ever seen them before.
"Then you should tell them to get down here now, because we found Mokuba and the creep who took him," Joey answered, keeping his voice low so as not to be overheard by said creep. "We're at the loading docks by the harbor, you know, by all those warehouses. Tell them to hurry, because at this rate, either Ryou or Seto is gonna be sleepin' with the fishes!"
"Wait, what?!" Anzu squeaked, but Joey hung up then. It was too difficult to explain all of this to her over the phone. With any luck, she had enough sense to do as Joey'd asked and get the cops down here immediately.
"Who was that on the phone, Joey?" Seto called out without looking at his friend, still studying the cards in his hand.
"Just Anzu; she was wondering where you were, because apparently you'd agreed to meet her somewhere," Joey answered nonchalantly. When Seto met his gaze, though, Joey's stern look communicated the rest of his message: help is on the way, so just run out the clock.
They'd reached a stalemate, a place where neither of them was entirely sure of how to continue from this point. They both had fewer than a thousand life-points (Ryou at 400, Seto at 900), and because of Ryou's continuous spells and continuous traps, the very act of playing a card and ending his turn would forfeit the match to Seto.
It was a quiet couple of minutes as Seto brooded over his cards and Ryou watched the timer count every passing second. When it hit thirty, he finally lost his resolve.
"Just attack me, Seto." The two friends locked gazes over the water and the holograms. "There's no time left."
"Not a chance," the brunette replied firmly as he drew his next card. His face lit up with a smirk as his spine straightened unconsciously and he turned to glance at the thug still holding his brother. "It's over. You can tell your boss that I'll be coming for him as soon as I'm done with this ridiculous puzzle he roped us into." His eyes glinted with reflected sunlight, but they seemed to glow with a light of their own. "Tell Noah Kaiba that nobody who threatens my family and friends ever gets away with it."
When Seto's expression changed, Ryou had dared to hope that he'd drawn a card that would save them. Now, brown eyes locked with blue, Ryou's attention focused entirely on Seto to see if he did, indeed, have a life-line.
"I lay one card face down and end my turn. This duel is over on the next turn."
Seto's life-points dropped from 900 to 400 as a result of Chain Energy, then looked at Ryou meaningfully.
"I draw—" Ryou began, sliding off the top card of his deck and adding it to his hand as he maintained eye contact.
"I activate my trap card, Ring of Destruction!" The holographic card revealed itself, and its familiar animation appeared before them. "And I target your Plaguespreader Zombie."
Just like that, with one trap card, Seto simultaneously wiped out both duelists' life-points, and with just under a minute to spare. The world blurred as they both rushed to free themselves. The thug's hand on Mokuba, and the child removed his own blindfold before pulling out of the man's grasp. Mokuba threw himself at his brother, almost knocking him over.
"You're okay!" the child exclaimed, hugging his brother around the neck as he tried to hold back tears of relief.
"Yeah, I'm okay," Seto murmured, lifting a hand to Mokuba's head and patting it reassuringly as they embraced.
"Hey, he's getting away!" Marik shouted, pointing in the direction of the thug who was running off and drawing the others' attention to him too. He didn't get very far, though, before Mai dashed out in front of him, pulling something out of her purse.
"Take that, you bastard!" she shouted as she aimed her pepper spray at his face. He yelled curses, saying that it burned his eyes, and Mai took advantage of that moment to give him a proper kick in the crotch.
Joey, Ryou, Marik, and Seto simultaneously flinched.
"That's what you get for kidnapping children, you horrible man!" she shouted at him as he sank to the ground, the distant sound of police sirens getting louder as the cars came closer. While the others were distracted, Joey turned to look at Seto and gave him a small nudge.
"You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm okay," Seto answered quietly, giving his friend a slight nod.
Once the police showed up, it was a simple matter of taking statements, apprehending the perpetrators, and letting the teens know that the police would be in touch should they need anymore information. As the police cars departed from the scene, Ryou let out a small sigh and placed a hand on Amane's shoulder. "I'm going to take my sister home. If Noah Kaiba really was behind that, then it's just too dangerous to let her hang around us anymore."
"That sounds like a wise decision," Seto said, nodding his agreement even as Mokuba slipped his smaller hand into his brother's empty one in search of a reassuring squeeze. Ryou could take Amane home to her mother, but Mokuba wasn't safe home alone or with anyone else. No, the safest place for Mokuba was at his brother's side.
A/N: Wow! This chapter took way too long! Really, I had most of it done early on (and then I had to rewrite some parts because I changed my mind about somethings). The delay was caused by school and other things taking up my time. ^-^;; The next chapter should be up in a month or so, and then I'll try to make up for lost time over the summer to get us through S2!